



»•(! 








LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, I 



Chap. 
Shelf 




% UNITED STATES OF kU\ 



THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, 



MISMANAGEMENT; 



Respectfully addressed to Congress. 



7 ^ 

BY CHARLES ELLET, Jk., 

CIVIL ENGINEER. 



The Army abounds in Skill, Science and Enterprise; but these 
qualities are not at its head: hence its inefficiency. 



WASHINGTON: 
1861. 



.& 



THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 



The foUowinc^ communication was written and forwarded 
to the New York Times the date it bears, October 9th, and was 
immediately set in type, but its publication was postponed, 
for a season, at the instance of the editor of that able journal, 
who became impressed with the conviction that the strategy 
of General McOlellan, in a few days from that time, would 
be vindicated by movements and results which would satisty 

the country. , ^i ^ i 

The plans of the General, in the eight weeks that have m- 
tervened since that period, have been fully developed, but 
the results have served only to illustrate, most sadly and 
painfully, the soundness of the writer's early formed^ opinions 
of the incapacity of that officer to discharge the duties ot ins 
great trust. , , _, ^ , „ ^ 

These results are exhibited in the llockade of the Potomac, 
effected since the paper was written, under tlie immediate 
eyes of the commander of perhaps two hundred and htty 
thousand brave and loyal volunteers, whom a conhdmg coun- 
try has intrusted to his ca«e. 

They are further exhibited in the attempt— made also since 
the i^aper was written— to send a portion of the right wmg 
of this great army across the Upper Potomac, after three 
months of deliberate and costly preparation, ^n an old scow 
and two small ski fs. , 

They are exhibited, too— these sad and humiliating results— 
in the' consequent repulse and deplorable loss ot halt tlie gal- 
lant men who were thus placed in peril and led on to destruc- 
tion, with their General's knowledge and m pursuance ot Ins 
own plans, if not by- his immediate orders, and almost under 

his own eyes. , ^-77., .1.-,^. 

They are exhibited, moreover, in the national shame due 
to the prolonged and undisturbed presence of a dehant rebel 
army, in the tace of a quarter of a million ot loyal bayonets, 
of which the irresistible power is paralyzed by the impotence 
of their Commander. , i 5 i f. 

They are exhibited in the depression of the people shcai ts 
-chilled and discouraged at the sight of their capital be- 



leaguered — their vast armies at a dead-lock — a feeble and 
traitorous conspiracy mocking their imbecility — and every 
man of soldierly qualities in the civilized world sneering at a 
General who has been allowed to collect an army so vastly 
superior to his intellect that he is unable to move it. 

Disappointed patriots, looking at the slow progress of the 
war — with the hundreds of thousands of men in arms, and 
the daily million which it costs the country — naturally con- 
clude that we have greatly underrated the power and the 
prowess, the unanimity and the military resources of the 
South. 

But the difficulty is not there. The disloyal part of the 
South is no stronger, nor is the loyalty of the country weaker 
than was supposed. 

The strength of the Union, before its forces were called 
into the held, was latent and unavailable. 

The strength of the armies in their camps will still continue 
to be latent and unavailable, until their resistless power can 
be moved and directed by a clear, energetic, and comprehen- 
sive inlellec^. 

The (commanding General is the army's brain. "VVe may 
accumulate luiiidreds upon hundreds of thousands of brave 
and lo_)ai volunteers, rich in all the science and art and me- 
chanical skill of the abundant land ; we may provide our 
proud army with battery upon battery, and squadron upon 
squadron, and pour accumulated comforts upon it, until in- 
vention is exhausted and the railroads groan beneath their 
ceaseless loads. Yet that army, of which all the individual 
iire, intelligence, and skill are subordinated by the rules of 
military service to the assumed sujjeriority of an incompetent 
commander, will either rest idle in its camps, a helpless 
burden upon the country, or be moved, if moved at all — as 
recently on the Upper Potomac — to its own destruction. 

Such is now our unfortunate position. The Army is all 
that the ardent patriot could wish it to be — brave, loyal, and 
ready. But the General at its head, though respectable as a 
man, is not a siijjcHor man, and therefore unequal to his great 
duties. 

There have been periods during General McClella.n's 
presence here on the Potomac, while his army was resting in 
camps before the Capital, when opportunity upon opportunity 
for annihilating the rebellion in Virginia, at a blow, was suf- 
fered to pass by him unseen and unimproved. 

There have been weeks in succession this summer and au- 
tumn, when the transfer of only ten thousand men — entirely 
useless here — to the region drained by the Great Kanawha, 
would have enabled a general who understood the tojiography 
of Western Yirginia, and the elements of military strategy, 



to capture the entire forces under Lee, Floyd, and Wise, 
witliout the necessity of a single battle to adorn his triumph 
in blood. 

In fact, the whole rebel armj in Western \''irginia placed 
itself recklessly in our power; while our commander here, 
wholly unconscious of the opportunity inviting him to prompt 
action and to a bloodless victory, continued his daily parades, 
with unbroken self-applause — apparently satisfied with the 
display of his impatient troops and the barren amusement 
offered to an admiring public. 

Yet, the defeat of that rebel army in AYestern Virginia- — • 
not by a battle, but by a march — would have enabled Rose- 
crans to lead his victorious and united forces across the Blue 
Kidge to the railroads south of Manassas, where he would 
have commanded all the communications of Johnson and. 
Beauregard, and forced the rebel army of the Potomac, also — 
not to tight, for that would have been unnecessary, — but to 
surrender or disjperse. 

An army cannot fight without food j and we have been 
for long periods in a position — needing only a General com- 
petent to use the advantages placed within his reach — to de- 
prive the rebel armies of their supplies of food, at our discre- 
tion. 

It is quite possible that these opportunities may occur again, 
when there maybe a general in the field ; and after the people 
shall have learned to know that neither the President's com- 
mission, with the Senate's confirmation, nor a military dress, 
nor a " bi'illiant staff," nor newspaper adulations, nor all com- 
bined, can form a leader competent to the work now before 
the country. Until then we must have patience. 

In the meantime, the following letter is submitted in the 
form in which it w-as printed nearly two months since, show- 
ing, as nearly as the writer could state the facts without the 
risk of giving available information to the enemy, some of the 
salient errors of our over-burthened Commander-in-chief. 

These errors may be repeated, and Ball's Bluff tragedies 
exhibited to the country again on a broader scale. 

"^The magnitude of the army is no protection against their 
occurrence. When vast masses of troops are thrown into con- 
fusion by imbecile attempts to carry out imperfectly digested 
arrangements, such as we have already seen and shuddered to 
look on, the greater the numbers in the field the greater is 
the danger, and the more terrible the reverse to be appre- 
hended. 

Geoegetown, December 4, 1861. 



To the President of tie United States — 

Georgetown, D. C, Oct. 9, 1861. 

I trust, Mr. President, that I need not pause to apologize 
for addressing you, the chosen custodian of the public wel- 
fare, on grievances from which, in common Math all our 
loyal countrymen — as well those who are cognizant of the 
facts as those who are unconscious of their existence — yon 
and I, and all of us, are now sutfering, but which you alone 
possess the lawful power to remove. 

Happily, in this countiy, we still possess, in defiance of 
treasonable insurrection, and all its consequences, a free 
Press / and through that, after wasting many weeks of 
precious time in unavailing personal efforts, I now appeal 
for a redress of palpable evils. 

My wish is to invite your attention to what I deeni to be 
serious neglects and mismanagement on the part of tlie com- 
mander of the Army of the Potomac exhibited — not beyond 
the Mississippi, but here under our own eyes, within sight 
and sound of the Capital — where the existence of this great 
nation is in immediate issue, and where all the facts which I 
shall state are pateni., or may be verified by yourself or 
others, with little ditHculty. 

On the strength of these facts — without intending to im- 
peach the patriotism, the courage, the zeal, or the industry of 
the Commanding General — I propose to demonstrate that he 
is not equal to the command of the two hundred thousand 
IKitriotic nolunteers said to he contained in the 'present Army 
of the Potomac. 

You are aware, sir, that I have been for many weeks vainly 
endeavoring to obtain an interview with Major General Mc- 
Clellan, for the purpose of submitting to him the evidence that 
the rebel army, which has so long threatened this Capital, is 
wholly dependent for its existence as an organized body, on 
the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, and the extensions of 
that work to Richmond, and to the West and Southwest : 
That the destruction of that road and its motive power, as 
matters now stand, would be equivalent to the destruction 
and disastrous dispersion of the army which it supplies with 
food, munitions of war, and reinforcements ; that this road 
and all its connections north of James river are very deficient 
of locomotive engines and rolling stock ; vital facts, on which 
I had a right to ask to be heard, because as an engineer long 
in the actual professional control of large portions of these 
works, I was necessaril}' very familiar with their condition. 

Based upon these facts, I desired to submit to the Com- 
manding General a plan by which this already exceedingly 



deficient supply of locomotive engines conld be almost in- 
stantaneonsl}^ reduced ; the railroad line which sustains the 
rebel army, and all its tributaries, could be for a season dis- 
abled ; and how a strong division might then be placed be- 
tween that army, thus crippled, and its sources^ of snpply, 
both to prevent it from restoring its communications and to 
cut off its inevital)le retreat. 

The plan, in fact, contemplated the immediate and entire 
destruction of the insurgent army, almost without bloodshed; 
provided, only, that the facts could be submitted to the 
General in command, and he would have the prudence to act 
upon them with absolute secrecy and prompt dispatch. 

Although Gen. McClellan knew of my long connection 
with these works, and of my intimate local knowledge,! was 
obliged, in order to procure a brief interview with him, to^ 
develop parts of my plan to yourself, to several members of 
your Cabinet, to Gen. Scott and gentlemen of his Staff, to 
'Gen. McClellan's Aid, and to other distinguished persons, 
and with all these efforts, supported by your own written 
request that he would hear me, so great, apparently, was the 
pressure upon the General's time, that I was finally obbged 
to abandon the efiort as hopeless. 

I w^ould not have passed through this ordeal for any con- 
ceivable personal interest of my own ; but I was willing to 
submit to any sacrifice where so deep a stake was involved as 
the prompt suppression of this most foul and wicked rebel- 
While I was thus patiently visiting the General's head- 
quarters, day after dav, to olfer with my life to destroy the 
enemy's means of transportation, and with the destruction ot 
that transportation to terminate the war in Virginia, the 
General himself, apparently unconscious of the magnitude ot 
the issue involved, allowed that enemy to come over both the 
Catoctin Mountain and the Blue Ridge, and seize tlie great 
locomotive engines on the Baltimore and Ohio itailroad, and 
convey them away, over mountains and valleys, in siglit^ot 
the very watch fiVes of our own camps on the Upper Po- 
tomac. ^ ^. 1 ■ 1 
Further than this: The immense war transportation which 
has been thrown upon the Yirginia railroads has created a 
demand for iron rails, to lay down many new traclvs, turn- 
outs and sidings. They accordingly came, and were allowed 
to come tranquilly, almost within cannon-range ot our own 
pickets, and strip mile after mile of the Baltimore and Ohio 
Railroad of its iron tracks. ^ ■ a ^f 
To move these great engines over the mountain roads ot 
Yirginia must have required thirty or more horses to each 
locomotive. To carry off ten or twelve miles ot the iron ot 



the double track of tliat road, and the other needful appur- 
tenances, must have demanded nearly two thousand trips of 
a single four-horse team, or twenty successive trips of one 
hundred such teams. 

Yet all this work was allowed to be done witliin two hours' 
march of our lines, without the least interruption or resist- 
ance on the part of our Commanding General, though it was 
perfectly practicable, not only to have rescued the engines 
and the iron which they were bearing away, but to have cap- 
tured all the men, and teams, and troops engaged in that dis- 
astrous robbery. 

Had the commander of a blockading squadron been known 
to allow vessel after vessel to enter a rebel port with pro- 
hibited supplies, without making an effectual effort to cap- 
ture one of them, he would have been immediately recalled 
and cashiered by the finding of a court-martial. But the 
Commanding General here, charged with the defence of the 
nation's menaced Capital, and provided with all the men and 
materials which his heart could desire, has stood silently by, 
engaged in holiday reviews and dress parades, and allowed a 
feeble enemy to supply themselves with machinery more 
needed fur the prosecution of their enterprise against that 
Capital than almost anything the ocean itself could bear into 
their ports. Each of these locomotives, when conveyed to 
the track of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, will be 
worth to the rebels the services of a thousand horses^ and, 
consequently, the ten great engines which they have thus 
been permitted to obtain, will accomplish more work for 
them than ten thousand horses, with army wagons, can per- 
form on the rough roads of Virginia.* 

I know it may be said, in extenuation of this almost crimi- 
nal neglect, that General McClellan was not fully aware of 
the importance of cutting off the enemy's supplies, and should 
not, therefore, be so strongly censured for neglecting a move- 
ment of which he could scarcely appreciate the magnitude 
and consequences. 

That may be, and no doubt it is, true. But it is, neverthe- 
less, most unfortunate for the country that it is so. 

A week ago our army was encamped within or near its 
fortified lines south of the Potomac, while the enemy was 
pressing forward — ^just as a competent Commander would 
wish, for the moment, to see him come — close up to our re- 
doubts on the banks of the Potomac. The nearer he could 

* Dec. 4. It is now said that this devastation has been suffered to continue 
until over twenty miles of the (loiible track have been removed. 

The deficiency of rolling stock, and other lailroad facilities here pointed out, 
will be found fully confirmed by the message of the traitor President, dated 
November 18. 



be induced to approach, the easier it would be for ns, having 
command of the river, the canal, and the railroads, and rest- 
ing secure under cover of our forts, to get heliind Mm and cut 
off his communications and supplies and retreat. But, not 
perceiving, or unwilling to do this, we have advanced from 
our cover into the open field, pressing upon the enemy before 
we have placed a force in his rear, with the intention, appa- 
rently, of giving him, once more, the choice of time and 
place for a conflict, when it is in our power to suit ourselves 
in both. 

It has been a part of the business of the army, for many 
months, to surround this city with a cordon of forts and re- 
doubts, covering not only all the existing approaches, bat the 
wdiole southern front of Washington on the south side of the 
Potomac. These forts have just been finished, and ai'med 
with rifled cannon and siege pieces in ample numbers. By 
the side of every mounted gun there is a present supply of 
grape and shot. The magazines are all finished and well 
filled with ammunition. The forests are cut down for many 
miles, and over thousands of acres, that nothing may inter- 
fere with the view or with the range of this formidable ar- 
tillery. 

A week or so ago the army shifted the position it had held 
under cover of tliese finished works, and advanced about four 
miles towards the enemy's line, where it is now encamped 
without artificial cover or defense of any description. 

The impression of all experienced men has been, that these 
fortifications were intended, in part, at least, as a protection 
to the Capital in the event of an unhappy result of the next 
conflict in the field. These forts being firmly held, the ene- 
my's advance could be checked, while our defeated regiments 
could be rallied under cover of their guns. 

What now, Mr. President, will be your conclusion when I 
tell you — as I have already told the Secretary of War — that 
as the army of the Potomac was moved forward upon the 
enemy's line — ^just at the moment, if ever, when these forts 
could be of any use — the garrisons were withdrawn from no 
less than seven redoubts, constituting the entire chain of arti- 
ficial defenses south of the Potomac; and forts raised for the 
protection of the Capital were left Mathout men enough to hold 
them against a surprise? 

Forts which would require about five thousand men for 
their proper defense, I think scarcely contain, at this time, an 
aggregate of three hundred bayonets, or an average of fifty 
men each. 

To show the importance of this oversight, permit me to call 
to your mind the fact that the defensive line now occupied by 
our troops, starting on the Potomac, two or three miles below 



10 



Alexandria, and Trending round by Bailey's Cross Koads, Mnn- 
son's Hill, and Falls Church, to the Potomac again, above the 
Chain Bridge— presents an unprotected development of not 
less than eighteen miles. 

Now, if the enemy should have the address to make a break 
in any part of this 'line— whether it be effected by surprise, 
by strategy or by main force— the column that makes its way 
through from certain points in the line, can reach and occupy 
these 'abandoned fortitications in little over one hours march. 

It will be replied, doubtless, that this enemy will have _a 
very strong foi'ce to overcome, and that Gen McClellan is 
publicly pTedijed "to have no more Bull Run affairs." I ad- 
mit both facts ; and vet I well know that if the enemy attack 
our lines— holding the object of reaching these well-armed 
but neglected redoubts expressly in view— his columns must 
be mos't impotently commanded if he cannot get tour or live 
regiments and a few field batteries through and into the 

works. 

And here let me add that if he once enters, and turns one 
portion of our own excellent but abandoned guns upon our 
own communications, and the other portfon upon the Capital,^ 
two events will assuredly and speedily follow. The seat of 
Government will fall into his hands. He will destroy that 
part of the army of the Potomac which wall occupy the nar- 
row and devastated region lying between the forts which he 
will then hold, and his own free columns in the field, con- 
fronting our lines, the greater part of which contracted ground 
will then be swept by the artillery of our own Ibrts in the 
bands of the enemy. ^ -n i - 

These are facts. Sir; and I most respectfully ask you to 
visit the works and examine them for yourself, and it you tmcl 
their condition still such as it was three days ago, to order 
the return of the garrisons and the maintenance of the strict- 
est vigilance there. -r^ . , ^ j.i J.^ 

Allow me to ask you, moreover, Mr. President, whether the 
General whose care's of office are so great, that, after spending 
months of labor in rearing and arming these works, forgot 
their puri)Ose, and withdrew their garrisons at the very mo- 
ment when the prol^ability that they might be needed was 
most imminent, is not carrying a greater load of duty than 
his shouldei's were naturally made to bear? I ask you, is 
General Mc(^lellan equal to the multiplied duties involved 
in the conm.and of two hundred regiments of volunteers, and 
to be made ihe sole protector of the immortal destinies of this 
country* 

Let me add still another word on this subject, it these 
forts can ever be of any value, it is precisely when the ene- 
mv's ffuns are within sound of the Capital. It is then that 



11 

they should be firmly held, so that come what may in the 
next conflict, the seat of the National Government, at least, 
shall be safe." 

Ill cominon, I presume, with almost every practical man in 
this District, I have for many weeks looked with anxious ap- 
prehension at the condition of the Zong Bridge, the only 
available direct communication between the Capital and the 
vast army south of the Potomac. This bridge has been long 
known to the public to be in a critical condidon, and has re- 
peatedly been so much impaired as to arrest the passage of 
troops and supplies since the army first moved into Vii-ginia. 

In view of the disasters which might result from the giving 
way of this structure, at a period of some great emei-gency, 
I have repeatedly advised the construction of a provisional 
bridge below the Georgetown Aqueduct, which might be 
established there, at any time, in the course of three or four 
days. 

Yet the direct communications of a great army are left, 
month after month, wholly dependent on this frail and preca- 
rious structure ; a neglect which, on a similar occasion, and 
within the memory of living men, cost a worsted general the 
loss of thirty or forty thousand of his defeated but gallant 
army. 

Last week I passed over this bridge, and was requested by 
the sentinel to drive my buggy slowly, a drove of cattle for 
the army having broken a span. A few days later, after visit- 
ing these vacated redoubts, I crossed the river again, and 
found that the iron work of the draw had iust then eiven 

111 • ' 

way, so that only one horse at a tmie was permitted to pass, 
while a long train of army wagons stood on the bridge wait- 
ing for its repair. 

I could not induce the Commanding General to listen to a 
plan for destroying the enemy's exposed communications, ap- 
parently not being aware, in the hurry of his engagements, 
that an army could be defeated just as disastrously l)y cutting 
oif its supplies as by charging it with the bayonet, or mowing 
down its misguided ranks with artillery. 

Not perceiving the consequences of interrupting the ene- 
my's communications, he is unwilling to take the trouble to 
seize them. Equally unable, amid his multiplied cares, to 
appreciate the value of his own, our General has not only con- 
structed and armed seven formidable redoubts which com- 
mand his roads, and then left these finished works as an easy 
prize for the enemy, but now permits the safety of the most 
valuable army — considering the material of which it is com- 
mit is true that, although the forts coiitiinied to be neglected, the enemy 
made no attempt to seize them, a forbearance for which the country ought to 
be thankful. My earnest advice is still, however, to guard them well. 



12 

posed — that was ever marslialed on a battle-field, to depend 
on a bridge so frail that the passage of a single battery on 
the run would rack it to pieces.* 

Let us turn to the Upper Potomac. There rests the right 
wing of our army, of which, in these days of secrecy, when 
an unknown man is deemed a safer depository of all facts 
bearing on tlie national welfare than an intelligent public, the 
numbers are untold. This rijj-ht wine; is within sight of the 
camps and within sound of the guns of the isolated and wide- 
spread left wing of the enemy on the opposite side of the 
river. We have the advantage of railroad and canal trans- 
portation, and the liieans of silently accumulating, at any 
point we nia\^ select, whatever masses of troops we may need 
for any en tc prise, w'thout the knowledge of the enemy. 

Nothing &-iparates the two armies but the Potomac river, 
which, fori ui.atel_y, lias not been fordable since these two wings 
confronted each other. 

The excuse offered for the inactivity of that division of our 
great arra}^ is the prevailing high water. But this fact, Mr. 
President, covers the very reason why the over-extended left 
wing of the enemy should have been surprised long ago and 
cut otf. 

He has been there waiting in security for the fall of the 
water. A commanding General, possessing ordinary military 
resources, and not over-burdened with cares, would have 
thi'own a bridge across the Potomac some dark night, at a 
point where there is neither ford nor ferry, passed over with 
twenty or thirty thousand men, and have surprised and cut 
off that left wing from its centre, and rolled it up to the Catoc- 
tin Mountain. He would then have had an ample force on 
the left flank of the enemy's centre, now menacing our forti- 
fications in front of Washington, and been relieved of the con- 
tinued necessity of guarding the Upper Potomac against its 
passage by the rebels. 

It is precisely because such a movement would be popularly 
supposed to be impossible that its performance would be easy. 
The only impediment has been the swollen state of the river; 
but, with proper and timely preparation, the Potomac can be 
bridged almost anywhere above the Great Falls in a few hours, 
and in several places in a single hour. 

* Dec. 4. The Long Bridge has been repaired and strengthened since this 
was written, but it is still a very inadequate dependence for the use and safety 
of a great army. 

An active enemy, as our own army is commanded, and as the forts are held, 
could destroy tlie Long Bridge, and isolate our troops on the Virginia shore, 
and cross the Potomac with forty thousand men simultaneousl}' above and 
below the Capital, and force his way into it in defiance of all the impediments 
the generalship which was illustrated at Ball's Bluff would know how to pre- 
sent. 



13 

I know the character of the river well, for I surveyed it ali 
in my early youth, and have forded it in many places. 

Yet, with this opportunity inviting enterprise, there stands 
our gallant army, with hundreds of officers and men straining 
on the bit, and vainly sighing for honorable and loyal service, 
but obliged to wait on the convenience of a Commander whose 
time is so engrossed by other duties that he has no leisui-e to 
think about cutting oif the enemy's wide-spread wings, or inter- 
rupting his unprotected communications.* 

The cry is now still, as it has been, for more men. Permit 
me to say, Mr. President, that we need no more men Iiere. We 
have bayonets and artillery more than enough in this army 
of the Potomac. You have more men and equipments now 
here than Napoleon moved when he prostrated Prussia ip a 
three weeks' campaign. You have more men here on the 
Potomac than he moved when he marched to the heart of 
Austria, occupied Vienna, and dictated laws to the sovereigns 
of Europe from the Palace of Schoeubrunn. 

You have, in fact, more men now assembled in this one 
army than your General has the capacity and experience to 
put in active motion. 

The efficiency of an army is not to be measured by count- 
ing its regiments and batteries. Like the momentum of a 
railway train, its power is a function of its mass and its ve- 
locity. Ten thousand living men under an able, enterprising 
and active leader, will accomplish more than two hundred 
thousand under one who is so lost in the mazes of his own 
columns that he not only forgets to leave garrisons in his 
forts at the moment when they are most liable to be taken, 
and keep open his roads when their obstruction would be 
most fatal, but is unable to hurl his vast masses where the 
weakness of the enemy invites his attack. 

This machine is, in fact, too heavy for your engineer. His 
feeble hand cannot move the starting lever. Your gallant 
army, therefore, stands idle, while rebellion riots on the 
substance of loyalty, and a traitor government is assuming 
solidity in repose. 

I do not wish to discredit our General because he has a 
duty to perform far beyond his capacity. That is not his 
fault. A man is not often responsible for his own mental 
or physical qualities ; and it is saying nothing derogatory to 
General McClellan to show that he is incompetent to the 
command of the armed hosts now assembled on the Potomac. 

Let me remind you, Mr. President, that an army of two 
hundred thousand men, with its baggage trains, cavalry, and 

*Ten days after this paper was printed, the attempt was made by General 
McClellan to cut off the enemy's force «t Leesburg, in his own way — by cross- 
ing the Potomac at Ball's Bluff on an old scow, aided, it is said, by two skiffs. 



14 

artillery, will occupy so great a space that there is no single 
road leading from Washington to Richmond — a distance of 
about one hundred miles — along which it can be marched. 
In other words, such an army in marching array will fill up 
more than one hundred, probably over one hundred and 
twenty miles, of any road I have ever traveled in Virginia. 

Distributed among four commanders, on as many difl'erent 
roads, each separate column will occupy some twenty-five or 
thirty miles. 

We may thus perceive why the progress of an army in 
the Southern Srates — where we will find no wide, well-paved 
and graveled European causeways — will necessarily be very 
slow, even where the roads are smoothest and there is no 
enemy in front. But the march of General McClellan — 
should he ever begin it — will be enlivened by a battle, or a 
promise of one, every day. 

When one of these great columns is unexpectedly attacked 
by a light and active enemy, and thrown into confusion, and 
its regiments begin to surge upon each other — the bridges 
to break down — mines to explode — the baggage to become 
entangled with the artillery — teams to stall in the mud-holes 
or upset on the steep hill-sides — while new roads are to be 
opened and the old ones to be enlarged by your engineers, 
under fire — then will be the time to judge of the merits and 
powers of commanders. Then, too, the public will be able 
to decide whether it would have been most advisable to 
undertake to roll an army of three hundred thousand men 
over all the South, down to the Gulf of Mexico, or to send a 
detachment upon the enemy's rear, command his communi- 
cations, and annihilate his armed force where it now stands. 

I know, it will be asked : What is to be done 'I For, in truth, 
we cannot yet have generals whose experience and capacity 
would be equal to this great command. 

The remedy, in my opinion, is to let General McClellan 
stay here and garrison and defend the thirty-two fortifications 
around Washington — which, with daily reviews and parades, 
will abundantly occupy his time, and give the fullest scope 
to his capacity — whatever that may be ; and, at the same 
time, let the enemy remain in front of these works and 
threaten to attack them. 

This policy will set free, perhaps fifty, perhaps a hundred 
thousand men ; and this force may be put under the command 
of some of your most active Generals, with instructions to fall 
on the rear, and communications of the enemy, by different 
routes, and by a concerted and consistent plan. 

If, instead of moving his army forward. General McClellan 
had remained within and behind his forts, and only ten thou- 
sand men, under a vigorous leader, had been suddenly thrown 



15 

across the Upper Potomac — not loaded down with baggage, 
but in marcliing and fighting trim — to move rapidly\\M)n 
the rear of Lee, the communications of that leader woukl 
have been cut off, and the three rebel Generals — Lee, AVisk 
and Floyd — have been simultaneously surrounded. 

So, too, if only ten thousand of this vast and most unwieldy 
army of the Potomac had been allowed to remain west of the 
Allegany Mountains, and sent thence directly up the Great 
Kanawha, and along the west side of New Kiver, through 
Fayette and Mercer — where the way has always heen entirely 
clear — they would have reached the Lynchburg and Ten- 
nessee railroad without opposition, taken possession of it, de- 
prived the rebel army on -the Potomac of its Southwestern 
supplies and reinforcements, given hope and aid to East Ten- 
nessee, and, moving down the Valley, co operated in cutting 
off the three rebel divisions of Western Virginia. 

Simultaneously with these movements, another ten thousand 
could have been landed on the Potomac below Matthias Point, 
or on the Rappahannock, and by a sure and sudden process — 
which I need not indicate in a published paper — have de- 
stroyed the present use of the Fredericksburgh, Central and 
Orange Railroads, and, by a single blow, in a single day, 
have utterly cut off all the railroad supplies of every division 
of the insurgent forces in Virginia, incKtding their army of 
the Potomac. We would then have had Western Virginia 
cleared of the enemy, and forty or fifty thousand men to pour 
over the Blue Ridge in the rear of the rebel army of the 
Potomac* 

The efficiency of General McClellan's vast command would 
have been increased, instead of being lessened, by tiie with- 
drawal of these forces — ;just as a stone wliicli is found to be 
too heavy for the muscles of the slinger's ai'ra, is made more 
available by breaking the unwiekly mass into pieces. 

Up to a certain limit, it is true, good ger^eralship is shown 
by concentrating battalions, so as to present a siperiority on 
the actual field of battle. But when the concern ration is too 
great for the character of the roads to be traversed, for the 
ability of the country to sustain the army, for th(; capacity of 
the commander to wield the thunders he has brought together 
• — then, every additional regiment and battery adds to the 
confusion, or takes from the efficiency of the command. 

Our army here has already reached and transcended that 
limit. It is now large enough, if properly used, to sweep 
rebellion from the land, and restore the loyal people of the 
South to the enjoyment of all their rights. 

* December 4. All the lines named here were open to our advance, in Oc- 
tober. They are now all occupied by the enemy, in force ; and his new positions 
must be turned by a very different strategy. 



16 

Let me repeat the statement of a transparent fact. The 
true base of the rebel army of the Potomac is Manasses 
Junction. From that point all supplies are now conveyed to 
the army north of the Junction by common teams.* 

But south of this true base — unlike the great armies of 
past times — they have no common road transportation, but 
depend wholly on their railroads. These railroads, and the 
country which they traverse, from Manasses Junction to the 
Gulf of Mexico, are, in a military sense, w^ioUy unprotected. 
Even now, you may strike in south of that position, almost 
anywhere, with a small division, under a gallant leader, and 
inarch southioardly almost with impunity — disabling the 
railroads and machineiy as you advance, to prevent pursuit 
by the rebel array of the Potomac, and avoiding the large 
cities, if .you have not force sufficient to take them. It will 
be unnecessary to invest these cities, even, to render them 
harmless. By temporarily crippling their railroads and canals 
merely, they will be sufficiently invested. 

By thus disabling the unprotected railroads and machinery 
south of Manasses, you will at once place the rebel army 
before Washington, starving and helpless, at the mercy of 
your General here — provided he is then able to put any part 
of liis vast, patriotic, and tiery masses in forward motion. 

Mr. President, winter is ap^^roaching, and the delay still 
continues. These are truly precious moments, richer than the 
mines of California in golden opportunities. Let them not be 
wasted for any misplaced tenderness of the pride or vanity 
of a Commanding General. There is still time, with instant 
action, guided by intellect, to destroy the enemy's communni- 
cations, and stop his supplies, and demoralize his disloyal 
forces. But, to do it, we must pluck the passing day. Next 
month may be too late. 

Then in God's name and our country's name, let us move at 
once^ and postpone our daily reviews until treason is subdued, 
and our patriotic regiments can display, by the side of their 
new silken banners, the captured colors of the enemy as they 
file proudly by the front of the Executive Mansion. 
Most respectfully. 

Your obedient servant, 

CHARLES ELLET, Jk., 

Civil Engineer. 

Georgetown, D. C, October 9, 1861. 



*Thi8 was true when it was written. Things have changed since then, but 
tlie rigid strategy of our General is still the same — and equally adapted to all 
emergencies. 



NOTES. 



The BALL'S BLUFF CALAMITY. 

1 hold General McClellan responsiWe for the Ball's Bluff calamity 
for the following, among other, cogent reasons : 

Because he had taken three months to prepare for crossing the 
Potomac, and yet moved his forces before he had made any prepara- 
tions : 

Because he had timely offers from experienced parties to form corps 
of engineers and artisans to build boats and bridges, or do other me- 
chanical work, constantly before him, which he treated with con- 
tempt : 

Because his order to General Stone was vague and indefinite; and 
both General Stone's reply to that order, and his subsequent con- 
duct, as well as his Report, show that he construed the order (or 
some other unpublished communication) to mean that he was to send 
his command into Virginia as rapidly as his transportation would 
allow: 

Because the final order to General Stone, written after General 
McClellan had been informed of the fall of the chivalrous Baker, 
and of the repulse and destruction of his dauntless command, " to hold 
his positio7i {on the Virgi7ua shore) at all hazards,'' shows that a pri- 
mary object of the expedition, if it had any object, was to establish a 
force on the south side of the Potomac, with a view to unexplained 
ulterior movements. 

The subsequent order to General Banks, to proceed immediatehj 
with three brigades to the support of General Stone, is not reconcila- 
ble with the hypothesis of an available intellect at the moment when 
that order was issued. 

General Banks was on the north side of the Potomac, and General 
Stone, whom he was ordered to support, was on the south side ; the 
river was not fordable, and the principal scow which had been used 
for feiTying the army across, laden with the dead victims of official 
stupidity, was on the bottom. 
2 



18 

Yet General Banks was ordered, in all haste, to the support of 
General Stone, whom he could not approach, because the deep, wide, 
and rapid river was between them; wliile General jSIcCall, who, with 
his brave Pennsjdvanians, was, a large part of the time, on the Vir- 
ginia side of the Potomac, on the enemy's right Hank, and within 
about two houis' march of Stone's position, was neither advaiu-ed to 
the rescue of Baker in his extremity, nor to the support of Stone in 
]iis isolated and perilous post, — which it was the Commanding Gene- 
ral's intention to hold at all hazards, — hut ivas withdrawn. 

The statement at the close of General McClellan's explanatory 
report, that "on proceeding personally to the scene of operations, on 
the 22(7, and ascertaining that the enemy were strengthening them- 
selves at Leesburg, and that our means of crossing and recrossing were 
very insutficient," he withdrew his forces from the Virginia side, might 
lead to a misapprehension of the facts. 

General McClellan had been informed by General Stone, on the 
2(jth, two days before he went pei'sonally to Edward's Ferry, pre- 
cisely what his means of crossing and recrossing really were, and 
did not first ascertain that fact on going there. 

I allude to these things as collateral evidence of the correctness of 
the opinion which I have freely expressed — that the Commanding 
General's mind is incapable of providing for, or properly handling, nu- 
merous large bodies of men. 

It seems, in fact, to be deficient in powers of combination, and was 
obviously too much overwhelmed by the disaster at Ball's Blufl:' to 
order McCall's division forward to the support of his discomfitted 
troops on the Virginia side, but telegraphed to Banks, in his confu- 
sion, to move forward his column, without reflecting that Banks had 
not been provided with the means of crossing the Potomac. 

The order from General Stone to General Baker is alleged to be 
a forgery. The question of its authenticity should be investigated, 
and if it is ascertained to be a forgery, an effort should be made to 
detect and punish the traitor who committed the crime. 

THE BLOCKADE OF THE POTOMAC. 

An intelligent observer, looking at the forces assembled around 
Washington, and the operations of the rebels in blockading the Lower 
Potomac, would suppose that the troops under the command of Gen- 
eral McClellan were placed here to jarotect the enemy while raising 
their batteries along the south bank of the river from unauthorized 
interruption by the Union men of the North. 

But, for the benefit of such observers, it may be advisable to say, 



19 

that the unresisted blockade of the Potomac — the undistnrbod fortifi- 
cations now in course of erection along the AVinchcster turnpike — 
the unrebuked robbery of the iron rails and locomotives of tlie Balti- 
more and Ohio Railroad — the quiet occupation of the strategical 
points at Dumfries — and the massucre at Ball's Bluft' — are merely 
salient exemplifications of a single principle, common to them all, 
and that principle is — military incapacity. 



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